Law & Order

Logan and Briscoe investigate after a convicted child molester, Dr. Joseph Vinton, is murdered on Rick Mason's controversial talk show. The shooter is easily identified — he's Sid Fisher, the father of the dead man's victim from three years earlier. During the course of the investigation, however, the detectives find evidence that leads them to believe that Mason may have set up Vinton's murder so as to assure high ratings during sweeps period. Stone's case is made more difficult because Sid Fisher isn't willing to say anything that could put his son, Scotty, on the stand.

A disruptive, unbalanced homeless man is found severely beaten in an alley of the middle-class neighborhood he calls home, leading Stone to try to prosecute one of the residents for premeditated murder.

When college student Julia Wood charges an admittedly promiscuous rock star, C Square, with rape, he claims the act was consensual. Logan and Briscoe investigate the crime and soon learn that C Square isn't the nice guy he would have everyone believe. Kincaid makes a mistake during trial that puts her position as Stone's new ADA in jeopardy.

After a number of neighborhood residents are murdered, the police follow the investigation to a local racist who is murdering people he doesn't feel belong in his neighborhood. Stone finds himself facing a prominent black attorney representing the murderer.

After wealthy Jonathan Keyes is found dead in his home, the police receive an anonymous tip that he was murdered. Logan and Briscoe encounter difficulties at the scene when the widow and her attorney refuse to allow an autopsy, and by the time Rodgers is able to examine the body, it has already been embalmed. The medical examiner claims the death was natural causes, and even though the state finally gets the necessary proof that the death was murder, the methods used to obtain the needed evidence come under question when Stone tries the case in court.

When building superintendent Frank McKinnon is found murdered in the basement of the building he works and lives in, Logan and Briscoe initially investigate the crime as a potential break-in until forensics discovers that the "break-in" was staged. The state's attention soon turns to Sean, Frank's 17-year-old son. Dr. Olivet determines the son is an abusive sociopath after interviewing him. But when the victim's wife claims that Frank beat his family on a regular basis, Stone and Kincaid try to determine who is telling the truth.

Stone and Kincaid try to prove that the young woman believed to have planted a bomb in a parking garage had been brainwashed and was acting under the direct orders of Daniel Hendricks, the charismatic leader of a local cult known as the Acherusian Temple.

A dig at a building site uncovers the body of Sid Cohen, who had gone missing and been presumed murdered years earlier. The identification of the body proves troublesome for Stone, who had initially prosecuted Phillip Swann eight years earlier and had obtained a conviction. Swann uses inconsistencies between the original trial and the location of the body to seek an appeal.

When teenager Chris Pollit beats a fellow foster home resident to death, his lawyer seeks a not guilty verdict by reason of genetic defect, claiming that Pollit is genetically predisposed to violence because he has an extra Y chromosome.

When Billy Cooper is found murdered at the meat-packing plant where he works, Logan and Briscoe turn their eye to his wife Irina, a green card bride from Russia who had married Cooper in the hopes of a better life but had fallen in love with a co-worker and lost favor with her husband, who repeatedly threatened to send her back.

After 82-year-old Mildred Bauer is found dead in her apartment, suspicion immediately turns to her at-home caregiver and her boyfriend until the medical examiner reveals that the elderly woman had been starved to death. Feeding instructions given to Maria by Laura, the deceased woman's granddaughter, turn Stone's eye on the young woman, and she is charged with neglect and grave indifference to human life.

After Sol Bregman is arrested while trying to exchange a ransom payoff for his kidnapped son, Logan and Briscoe find themselves trying to find Jason Bregman while trying to stop the father, a millionaire and a close friend of Adam Schiff, from interfering in the investigation. Once Jason Bregman is found, suspicion turns to the victim himself.

Debra Elkins claims to have passed out in a cab after giving birth only to wake up and discover her baby is missing, but it isn't long before Briscoe and Logan follow the trail of evidence to her boyfriend, Steven Shaw, who is keeping the baby in a hotel at Debra's request. As the investigation continues, Stone and Kincaid find three separate couples who had been led to believe that they would be the family who would adopt the baby, but it seems as though Debra has no intention of giving her baby to any of the couples.

When the investigation into threats on a 5-year-old girl leads to a judge that Kincaid had been romantically involved with when she clerked under him, she asks Ben to take her off the case. When Thayer is brought to trial, he insinuates that Kincaid deliberately pointed the witness in his direction, claiming that she had approached him in an inappropriate manner while she worked with him.

When 14-year-old Angel Ramirez is shot dead while out with two friends, the investigation leads to a local gun dealer, Juan Domingo. While investigating Domingo, Briscoe and Logan learn that he was a recent suspect in a shooting that paralyzed a teenage boy, and Briscoe finds himself in an awkward position when Kevin Parker, the son of an old friend of Briscoe's, ends up being the prime suspect in young Angel's murder.

A nuclear physicist becomes the chief suspect when his estranged wife, who has been delaying divorce proceedings, is the victim of a mail bomb.

During a 24-hour period, Briscoe and Logan have a heavy caseload that includes five unrelated murders and a domestic quarrel (which results in the maiming of the husband).

Briscoe and Logan bet that the killing of a star athlete's father is linked to gambling debts and threats to the baseball player's family, but it turns out the son's alibi does not hold up and he ends up under suspicion himself.

A black minister fans the flames of racial intolerance after a hit-and-run in Harlem claims the life of a 12-year-old and the Jewish driver isn't indicted.

Briscoe and Logan investigate the disappearance of a child from her abusive foster home and find her being held by a loving but disturbed woman who insists she has acted only for the child's own good.

An assailant breaks the wrist of a tennis player prior to a tournament, and a competitor is among the suspects.

A truck hits a pedestrian and the investigation reveals the victim's link to a baby-food company in which a new partner has connections to the Russian mob.